Joey’s Take: The Dog Park

We’ve got a lot of problems facing our country right now. One of the biggest is the insane partisanship that’s ripping us apart. My years of experience as playground police at the dog park make me uniquely qualified to handle this situation. If the bullies in Congress – regardless of their party affiliation – get out of hand, I’ll be right there nipping at their heels until they get back to business in a civil manner. If that doesn’t work, I’m great at body slamming the pit bulls and rolling the little yelpers.

Speaking of the dog park. … I’ve noticed that what works in the neighborhood dog park doesn’t play so well on the Capitol Mall. Can you imagine 100 dogs, of every size and breed imaginable, running unleashed and out of control on the Mall? (OK, we’ve got that pretty much in the Senate!) Seriously, that many dogs chasing sticks, Frisbees, tennis balls and each other outside the confines of a dog park would create traffic jams, lead to some dog-bites-man non-news for the 24-7 news frenzy and result in a few dead Snoopys and Rovers. What works on a small scale usually doesn’t work on a national scale – whether you’re talking unleashed animals, health care or education.

The reason is accountability. In most neighborhood dog parks, the dogs get to know each other, and they’re accompanied by people who get to know each other. The end result is the people and the dogs begin to look out for each other. That doesn’t happen on a national scale populated by faceless masses and manipulated statistics.

Hillary (Clinton, that is) got it half right when she said it takes a village to raise a child. But when she “introduced” that African concept to the U.S., she mistranslated the word village. In most African countries, a village is simply a cluster of people united by kinship – and, thus, accountability and responsibility. In other words, it takes a FAMILY to raise a child, or care for their elderly, or tend to the sick within their midst, or look after the destitute among them. But in Hillary’s mind, village is translated as government, removing the need for personal accountability and responsibility.

As your representative in Congress, I’ll demand civility and do everything I can to remove the government from the village.

I’m Joey. I’m running for Congress. And I approved this message.

Joey’s Take: Keeping It Real

I have to apologize for going silent for the past two weeks. My campaign computer was attacked big time by viruses. If I were paranoid, I would blame it on a vast left-wing conspiracy aimed at shutting me up. But I’m a reasonable dog, so I’ll try not to buy into all the conspiracy theories. Instead, I’ll focus on real issues that matter to real people in the real world.

On the eve of the president’s speech to schoolchildren, a few media outlets trotted out Oprah’s list, prepared for the inauguration, of how children can serve their president. Funny, I thought it was his job to serve us. But I’m just a dog. What do I know?

It did get me thinking about how the role of a public servant has changed. The time was when we had citizens serving in a part-time Congress and then going home to take care of business. Now, we have professional politicians who position themselves as leaders, not servants. Yet, ironically, we have a woeful dearth of leadership in federal government.

So here’s a revolutionary thought: My campaign will be based on service – not leadership. If I’m elected, I pledge to:

• Be a servant, not a leader.
• Keep my paw out of your pocket and keep special interest paws out of my pockets.
• Make congressional pay merit pay. Senators and congressmen and -women who don’t show up for work, read the bills they vote for or live by the laws they pass shouldn’t get paid.
• Tie congressional salaries to the economy. If there’s no COLA for Social Security or government workers, there should be no pay raise for the servants in Congress. Period.

I’m Joey. I’m running to be your servant in Congress. And I approved this message.